ExponentialDecay

POC does NOT mean just black, rather people of color - again, not just black people. Also, requesting to speak to a POC from a school allows for real conversations around diversity to be had. Higher education is one of the most racially discriminated institutions in the US, which leads to a lot of issues for students that are POC. Issues non-POC counterparts tend to not notice/mention because it's not part of their lived experience.   

...Why they gotta be black?
Also, I don't represent SAIS in any capacity. You're just as effective googling "SAIS admissions contacts" and writing or emailing the people that come up.

No. PhDs train you to do research. JDs train you to do law. The two are not the same thing.
@ZeChocMoose not in legal academia, but a friend of mine who is says the credential needed to teach law school is called the JSD.

Then why does it matter that people with JDs get paid more?
Lawyers get paid more because lawyers always get paid more. If you want to be a lawyer, a JD is a good idea. Otherwise, no. 
Assuming by "flexibility to find work" you mean you want to easily find a job, using the term "flexibility" is a bit ironic. The most requested people are people with a narrow specialization... but then you have a narrow specialization. You have to be careful about picking one because it may very well lock you into a certain region, type of organization, or even fall out of vogue in a few years and leave you doing the unemployment version of Eat Pray Love. Law (or finance, and sometimes M&E) is a good specialization because it's basically a support role that allows you to work on a variety of projects in a variety of organizations and it has exit opps from the field. In that sense it's good. Getting a JD to work in any non-law role? Huge waste of your time.
Ultimately your question is never about degrees. You just default to degrees because school is all you've known so far and this is how you understand career progression (and PC, for all its benefits, does little to teach you otherwise - yeah you're in a "shithole country", but someone else is still making the strategic decisions for you). If you have the right skills, most organizations won't care if you have a degree or not. A degree is either the first step or a formality - it won't determine your "flexibility" or your success in the field. For all the harping that schools do on their successful alumni, success is something you create yourself. This is as delicate as the balance between flexibility and specialization, but while it's important not to do dumb shit like take out 6 figures for an MPA or get a JD to not work as a lawyer, if you're gonna do school, do a program that works for you. Maybe that's HKS, maybe that's Georgetown, or maybe it's a tiny university in Europe. Don't follow anyone's advice.

@jriveracal I have a couple of thoughts, but let me be blunt first of all: You either need to significantly up your GRE scores or adjust the schools you're looking at. This is not to say that there isn't an outside chance that you might get lucky and have someone sitting on an Adcomm that really likes your research interest, but it is much more likely that you'll quickly be put in the pile of people that does not get a second look. One bad score (either quant or qual) can be overlooked if the candidate is looking to do research relying on the other side of methods, two, most likely, will not be overlooked, especially at the level of schools you listed above. So my number one advice would be to really get going on that GRE prep. On the plus side, it is not even July yet, you'll have about 5 months to work on them.
 
A couple other thoughts/questions:
How did you come up with your list of schools? It kind of looks like you just picked the top 12 (and Brown). I'm asking because research fit is incredibly important. If there aren't at least 2-3 people at each school that you'd see yourself working with, you're a) going to have a much harder time making a convincing case as to why you should be admitted and b) much less likely to succeed and enjoy yourself during the program. Plus, as noted above, most of these are going to expect top notch GRE scores. What kind of methods do you plan on using/have you been trained in? As hinted towards above, that might put your GRE scores in perspective and further might help you figure out which schools to apply to. Regarding you having worked since 17. I personally would advise you against writing about personal stories unless these directly inform your abilities or research interests. You want to convince them that you are interested in research, have your own ideas, able to make it through their (rigorous) program, and that you are a good fit for their department. If your personal experiences are part of that, fine, but make sure your skills and potential come across. What was your UG GPA? (or is that supposed to refer to your UG instead of graduate) Coming from Berkeley and a stellar GPA should definitely help. So should your extensive research experience.  I wouldn't worry too much about not having any publications. Most people don't. And unless there's something you can do about it over the next few months, it doesn't help to worry about it anyways. Look, aside from you're GRE scores, you're overall profile seems very competitive. Good grades at a well-known institution. A lot of research experience. Presumably strong LORs. If you can get your GRE score to match that profile you should get into a good school. If you can up your GRE scores a little bit, so that the rest of your profile might make up for them, you should be able to get into a decent school (but then I'd start removing schools like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, or Michigan from that list as these tend to report the highest avg GREs).
 

Controversial opinion: I'm not sure that what OP is proposing is so reprehensible. Realistically, people need to attend the top programs in order to have a chance at a job, but even becoming competitive for admissions to top programs is logistically difficult and costly for anyone who's changing fields, who comes from a low-ranked undergrad, or who is simply ill-acquainted with how academia works. So what should those people do? Take out student loans for a useless MA in the humanities? Give up and get an office job? One is a stupid financial decision (and one consistently recommended against on this board) and the other is contributing to making academe a club for the wealthy. 
On the other hand, you have low-ranked programs that graduate their PhDs into no chance of a job, and know that this is the reality, where professors will outright tell you that, if you're getting a PhD here, you shouldn't be getting a PhD. Yeah, agreeing to attend a program for 5 years and quitting once you've found something better can be construed as a breach of trust - but taking 5+ years of people's lives (and exploiting their vastly underpaid TA labor so you don't have to create tenure lines to support your undergraduates) and then pushing them out to a world where they have a better chance of winning at slots than getting TT? When the contract is so broken on the one side, I don't know that people on the other side should be held to pristine standards.
I understand that people feel very emotional about the kind of plan OP proposes, because academia is more than just a job, but it's much easier to reflexively shit on the little person than to recognize that they are operating within the confines of a broken system.

Well hello. The only thing better than enjoying a sunny Friday off is doing it in the virtual company of my prospective colleagues/debt slaves, so welcome!
It would help if you posted a more detailed profile e.g. using the format in the sticky thread (feel free to also PM me your SOP or whatever) and stated what your professional goals are beyond being sector-agnostic and looking to stay in the US, in terms of institutions and roles. I'm not really sure what "being a generalist" means in this profession - afaik that's not a thing. Also, how much can you finance out of pocket?
So here's the thing about the DC schools. You'd have to be simple to not get an STC gig at one of the IFIs coming out of them, so that's a (good, all things considered) option for staying in the US. That said, at least at the Bank, they're seemingly doing everything they can to make these contracts untenable as permanent employment, so I don't know if that's still going to be an option 2 years from now. I know the regional development banks have better contract conditions but they also have more stringent nationality requirements. You might look into the ADB, which I know nothing about. H1B is a tough sell for the foreseeable future. There's a good representation at these institutions from HKS and WWS. The other schools, I can't say. By the way, forget about work life balance.
I can't speak to the reputation of GW in India as I'm not from India, so I would trust your network there (presumably you're asking people in your industry, not Auntie). When evaluating these scholarships don't forget to account for cost of living. Living in DC for 12 months will run you ~20k at a conservative estimate. NYC will be similar or more expensive. Boston is a little cheaper. Chicago is a lot cheaper.
tbh I just don't see an obvious solution for your situation. Immigrating to the US is hard as it is, and if you choose to also go into debt for a not very employable degree in the meantime... eh. A lot of it comes down to the personal factor, and maybe you have a fire lit under your ass and you'll take advantage of all the opportunities and make all the important contacts and be my boss in 2025; I can't know that. I can only tell you that, in your position, I wouldn't take out a cent in debt for any of those degrees. Some of that is rational and some of that is my personal risk preference. I also didn't have to and still got to pursue this career in this country (so far), so maybe I don't understand your pain. I think if I were coming from abroad and couldn't get a good scholarship to the top programs (did you apply, btw, for the Fulbright and the JJ/WBGSP?), I'd apply to the regional programs and go to the one that gave me a full ride over taking serious debt to go to a top program. I don't know about the US private sector, but so much of getting into the IFIs is about getting into the community of your countrymen and having them help you out.

Sure; but is keeping people out of a 5-year-long dead end bad or good?
I guess I'm struggling to express my thinking. In my understanding, this all goes back to the question that, if a PhD program consistently cannot graduate employable specialists, why does it exist? It should be a fully-funded master's that prepares people for entry to programs that can, or else gives them 2 years to experience professional scholarship and conclude it's not for them. Given there are major structural issues for why that will never happen, is it still immoral to treat these programs as funded master's? I don't know; but at least it seems to me efficient.
My other qualm is that there is a lot of people are spiritedly defending these institutions and The Community, but these institutions are constantly and brutally shafting graduate students and junior faculty, and the more junior you are, the harder you get shafted. The "wasting money that could've gone to qualified applicants who would get the PhD" argument doesn't really work for me, because if all your PhDs end up adjuncting six introductory classes or in the nebulous miasma of "alt-ac" rather than doing what they've trained for the better part of a decade to do, in my understanding that's still wasted money. If the department loses PhD funding because they can't retain enough PhDs - well, maybe they should. Maybe that will push them to offer respectable master's options, which is what is actually needed, rather than having people pledge their lives to the void. 
I'm not arguing that OP will be shooting themselves in the foot if they get a reputation for being opportunistic. I'm just arguing for clemency towards people who face OP's choices.

Controversial opinion: I'm not sure that what OP is proposing is so reprehensible. Realistically, people need to attend the top programs in order to have a chance at a job, but even becoming competitive for admissions to top programs is logistically difficult and costly for anyone who's changing fields, who comes from a low-ranked undergrad, or who is simply ill-acquainted with how academia works. So what should those people do? Take out student loans for a useless MA in the humanities? Give up and get an office job? One is a stupid financial decision (and one consistently recommended against on this board) and the other is contributing to making academe a club for the wealthy. 
On the other hand, you have low-ranked programs that graduate their PhDs into no chance of a job, and know that this is the reality, where professors will outright tell you that, if you're getting a PhD here, you shouldn't be getting a PhD. Yeah, agreeing to attend a program for 5 years and quitting once you've found something better can be construed as a breach of trust - but taking 5+ years of people's lives (and exploiting their vastly underpaid TA labor so you don't have to create tenure lines to support your undergraduates) and then pushing them out to a world where they have a better chance of winning at slots than getting TT? When the contract is so broken on the one side, I don't know that people on the other side should be held to pristine standards.
I understand that people feel very emotional about the kind of plan OP proposes, because academia is more than just a job, but it's much easier to reflexively shit on the little person than to recognize that they are operating within the confines of a broken system.

I'm not sure why your status as a nonprofit employee would matter for paying for school. afaik nonprofit employees don't get any special benefits.

Why are you asking..? You are already accepted at a program?
How substantial is the scholarship? If it's in the 10-20k range, this is fairly common and used by many schools like Columbia to incentivize students to come and pay the remaining 3/4-5/6 tuition. They make more money by forgiving some small portion of your tuition and getting you to come than by losing a student (they're not really giving you money - they're discounting a service with a fungible cost function). Public schools don't have as much freedom either in setting their costings or controlling their budget, as they have to report to the taxpayer, but their tuition fees are also usually lower. For instance, Columbia charges 56k in tuition whereas various SUNY campuses charge ~15k, less if you're a NY resident.

It’s common in some parts of Europe but it’s never done in North America.   

What do you mean, they're no longer reachable due to job changes? Unless they also went into witness protection, I'm pretty sure it's possible for you to find out where they work now (e.g. by asking the department secretary or simply googling their names) and reaching out to them via their new email.

What do you mean, they're no longer reachable due to job changes? Unless they also went into witness protection, I'm pretty sure it's possible for you to find out where they work now (e.g. by asking the department secretary or simply googling their names) and reaching out to them via their new email.

How often do undergrad theses even get read? Even in STEM? Even at my lower ranked grad program, in the teacher assistants' lounge we had a bunch of master's theses and we just used them for paper weights or for laptop props, for when students wanted to pretend to have a standing desk.  

Seeing as no one on the internet is privy to your fulfillment of graduation requirements and the logistics of fulfilling the outstanding ones, I don't see how anyone on the internet can help with this. You should probably speak to your adviser.


then the student group would seem to be a bad idea.
look, grad school, especially a master's, isn't really a place you should hang out for a while in. Go in, get the credential, get out. It's nice to try to improve the culture of the department if you have the inclination and time, but I doubt it'll do anything for your employability or whatever you hope to use this credential for, and if you have to take an extra unfunded year just to do it, it seems not worth it. You're going to leave this department as soon as you graduate. (also, if I may butt in, it seems weird that the usually token position of student body president should take up this much emotional energy and time - sounds like your faculty is trying to pawn off their service responsibilities on the grad students).


If you're going to do something with the credential, probably not. If you want to marry your boyfriend and aren't going to use the degree, probably yes. Either way, the right answer is logically apparent.

I appreciate your remembering so much about my project! I came in as an early modernist, intending to do Jesuit science in colonial contexts, which basically makes me a Europeanist at the outset. For pronouns' sake, it's "he."
I ended up taking a course about public health in the United States and became interested in American history of medicine. My current advisor and I get along quite well, I like her a lot, etc., but she's focused on 20th century American medicine. The best faculty member to supervise my project is currently a) retired and b) 72 years old. My intent, as it currently stands, is to apply to 2 or 3 programs with specialists in 19th century American medicine, and if that doesn't work out, I'll either find a different career path or move into 20th century work, neither of which I'd like to do. At any rate, I didn't enter my program with any intention of leaving.
That's at least the research element of my leaving. The other part has to do with personal concerns (e.g. mental health).
I think @ExponentialDecay is right about how rotten the system is. In many regards, the humanities system, let alone the PhD system, is based upon continuing to train intelligent people to fill jobs that don't exist. Rather than hire more tenured faculty, departments rely upon contingent faculty and graduate students. What has happened, in some programs, is that they've eliminated the PhD element of their program and started only offering a fully-funded (or at least well-funded) MA. The problem is that not enough programs are doing this.

Controversial opinion: I'm not sure that what OP is proposing is so reprehensible. Realistically, people need to attend the top programs in order to have a chance at a job, but even becoming competitive for admissions to top programs is logistically difficult and costly for anyone who's changing fields, who comes from a low-ranked undergrad, or who is simply ill-acquainted with how academia works. So what should those people do? Take out student loans for a useless MA in the humanities? Give up and get an office job? One is a stupid financial decision (and one consistently recommended against on this board) and the other is contributing to making academe a club for the wealthy. 
On the other hand, you have low-ranked programs that graduate their PhDs into no chance of a job, and know that this is the reality, where professors will outright tell you that, if you're getting a PhD here, you shouldn't be getting a PhD. Yeah, agreeing to attend a program for 5 years and quitting once you've found something better can be construed as a breach of trust - but taking 5+ years of people's lives (and exploiting their vastly underpaid TA labor so you don't have to create tenure lines to support your undergraduates) and then pushing them out to a world where they have a better chance of winning at slots than getting TT? When the contract is so broken on the one side, I don't know that people on the other side should be held to pristine standards.
I understand that people feel very emotional about the kind of plan OP proposes, because academia is more than just a job, but it's much easier to reflexively shit on the little person than to recognize that they are operating within the confines of a broken system.

It looks that your best options is to stop guessing and ask the university if they can give you a payment plan; and your advisor, if they let have a job on campus (be sure to know which job and how much you'd be making so that it makes sense to you. The important things is to graduate).

Controversial opinion: I'm not sure that what OP is proposing is so reprehensible. Realistically, people need to attend the top programs in order to have a chance at a job, but even becoming competitive for admissions to top programs is logistically difficult and costly for anyone who's changing fields, who comes from a low-ranked undergrad, or who is simply ill-acquainted with how academia works. So what should those people do? Take out student loans for a useless MA in the humanities? Give up and get an office job? One is a stupid financial decision (and one consistently recommended against on this board) and the other is contributing to making academe a club for the wealthy. 
On the other hand, you have low-ranked programs that graduate their PhDs into no chance of a job, and know that this is the reality, where professors will outright tell you that, if you're getting a PhD here, you shouldn't be getting a PhD. Yeah, agreeing to attend a program for 5 years and quitting once you've found something better can be construed as a breach of trust - but taking 5+ years of people's lives (and exploiting their vastly underpaid TA labor so you don't have to create tenure lines to support your undergraduates) and then pushing them out to a world where they have a better chance of winning at slots than getting TT? When the contract is so broken on the one side, I don't know that people on the other side should be held to pristine standards.
I understand that people feel very emotional about the kind of plan OP proposes, because academia is more than just a job, but it's much easier to reflexively shit on the little person than to recognize that they are operating within the confines of a broken system.

You should post on the history forum since this is going to vary by discipline/type of program
Generally, when it comes to PhD, you should apply to as many programs as you have good fit with, since applying to programs that are a bad fit and where you therefore wouldn't be able to do the work you're interested in is a waste. For most disciplines, I'd be surprised if you had good fit with more than 5 or so. Given the job market in history, if you want a job you're better off only applying to top programs (since attending a program that won't get you a job is also arguably a waste), so depending on your subfield, that number may need to be further constrained.
I'm not sure that "I just want to get in somewhere" is the right attitude when it comes to PhD admissions. You want to get into a program that gives you the resources to gain the kind of expertise you need to be competitive for the job you want out of it, otherwise why do it? Conversely, if you're targeting funded master's programs, it's better to apply widely.

This is common, both inside and outside of academia. Most entities that seek applications rarely notify the people they don't select. There is a difference between grad school applications and a job application, namely, you don't pay to apply to a job, but the department doesn't get the application money although they are the one that set the timeline for decisions. i.e. I am not sure what you mean by "they just want [your] application money".
Later on, if you apply to academic jobs, you will not hear anything at all if you don't get the job. Many places wait until the hired person starts before they close the hiring file and the system generates an auto rejection message. For some of my friends, this is years after the job application. Sometimes school does this too and you get a notification when the school year begins in the fall, or over the summer when the school finally closes the previous year's system and starts up the next year. Unless you got very far in the process, you should not expect any notification at all, much less a personalized letter.
As for the content, what else is there to say other than you were not accepted. You weren't offering your application up for an evaluation and feedback. The materials submitted are solely for the school to decide if you would be a good fit, so there should be no expectation of anything other than a decision. 
Yes, it sucks to get a rejection in this way, but it is neither unprofessional nor ridiculous. I got some nicely written rejection letters as well. I don't think I felt any different about those than the ones that just updated an online portal. 

Worry less about your GPA and more about your writing sample, which is the single most important part of the application and largely determines its strength, together with the statement of purpose. The fact you've gotten encouraging responses from potential advisors bodes well for your SOP, which needs to exploit/maximize the things that make your research appealing to them. Grades in your major(s), rec letters and language skills are also important and you seem to be in a good spot there. Your ECs don't matter.

You're wasting your time worrying about things you can't change. Nobody on this forum sits on admissions committees to the schools you're applying to, so nobody can give you any guarantees. GPA isn't the most important part of the process, but you're miles better off putting your energy into improving the things you can change rather than worrying about it.

CPT doesn't have to be required. You just need to receive credits for it. I would also recommend that OP make an independent study of US immigration law/get an immigration lawyer with experience in F1 and H1B in addition to using the services of their school's ISO, because ISO staff vary heavily in quality and I for instance have encountered multiple instances where the ISO gave me or my friends blatantly incorrect information (looking at you, Harvard and MIT). 
Further, if OP wants to stay in the US after graduation and don't have an employer that will ask for an H1B for them in April of their last year of grad school, they will have to rely on OPT.  F1 students receive 60 days grace period after the formal completion of their program of study, after which you must leave the US. And if you think that getting a job that will sponsor H1B is playing on hardmode, finding such a job while out of the country is something extra.